The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown was a recurrent theme throughout the schedule of talks, and B2Boost started with a detailed breakdown of video game spending in 15 European countries during that period -- specifically, the 11 weeks leading up to March 15, and the 11 weeks directly afterwards, giving approximate pre-lockdown and lockdown periods. Those results were then compared against the same 22 week sales period in 2019.
"Sentiment was uncertain, and a lot of consumers weren't sure how long they'd be in lockdown... Spend started to increase for video games, and we see a major spike in week 12."
This was amplified by a comparatively busy software release schedule in the weeks around March 15; Final Fantasy VII Remake, Doom Eternal and Animal Crossing were all released in that period, with Nintendo's Switch exclusive seeing huge success in its early weeks on the market.
"Throughout the lockdown period we did see a lot of consumers start purchasing new consoles, specifically hardware leading up to the lockdown period," Sakiris continued.
As a result, total spending during the 11 week lockdown period was up 51% over the same period in 2019. This dramatic increase more than balanced the lower performance of pre-lockdown, resulting in a 13% increase in spending across the 22 week period overall.
During the lockdown, every single category was up, and every category but peripherals was up by a higher margin than it was down prior to March 15. Network software had the biggest swing, up 127% as more and more people turned to digital products due to physical shops being closed. The other major gain was made by hardware, which rose 55% compared to the same period in 2019.
Within hardware, the platform that saw the largest swing in unit sales was the Switch. Unit sales of Nintendo's hybrid platform were actually 5% higher than 2019 during the pre-lockdown period, but it was 106% higher in the 11 weeks after March 15 -- partly driven by the strong performance of Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
SOURCE:
State of Games: COVID lockdown swung 2020 from "significantly lower" spending than 2019
